Getting Serious About Strategic Influence
Public diplomacy and public affairs need to be put in their proper places, as part of a larger discipline called strategic communication. Its mission must be similar to the mission of the armed forces: to project American power and influence and provide a permanent system through which to ensure the national interest globally. The mission must not be communication for communication’s sake, or simply to make the United States a player in the “global marketplace of ideas.” The mission must be to dominate that market. It must be to fight to win. It must be run strategically, like a permanent political campaign. To do so, it must be run not by diplomats and public affairs pros, but by real strategists and practitioners in the art of political action.
Video Game Veterans and the New American Politics
“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ is the new video game phenomenon in which the player fights in contemporary conflict zones. As part of a US special operations team, the player roams everywhere from Afghanistan to the Caucasus, winning hearts and minds with a mix of machine pistols and Predator drone strikes. The players also fight out in range of potential new conflict zones, from the rough urban favelas of Brazil to a simulated Russian invasion of Washington, D.C., and the Virginia suburbs (This is actually a major flaw in the game; any invasion force would clearly get stuck in traffic at the Interstate 95 Mixing Bowl). The game came out on Nov. 10. By the end of the next day, it had $310 million in sales. To put this into comparison, the recent Batman movie “Dark Knight,” which holds the Hollywood record, did a measly $67 million in its first day. But perhaps another comparison might be more apt. Roughly 70,000 young Americans chose to join the Army last year. But 4.7 million chose to spend the day after they bought the game playing war at home, many of them not even realizing they were doing so on Veterans Day.
NSA Is Giving Microsoft Some Help On Windows 7 Security
The National Security Agency has been working with Microsoft Corp. to help improve security measures for its new Windows 7 operating system, a senior NSA official said on Tuesday.
Medvedev mystique
Guy continues to give you reason to hope that he represents post-Putin possibilities inside Russia.
Disillusionment in Afghanistan
CFR’s Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow Kim Barker, who has just returned from a trip to Kabul, says Afghans are disillusioned with Karzai’s election and are increasingly worried about his dealings with warlords.
EU to train Somali forces
EU foreign and defence ministers, holding a rare joint meeting on Tuesday, were expected to give the go-ahead for military planners to mobilise the mission aimed at transforming Somali militia into the nucleus of a regular army.
Pakistani military hits Taliban in Arakzai
The Pakistani military pounded Taliban strongholds in the tribal agency of Arakzai, a region where Taliban leaders from South Waziristan have regrouped. Pakistani Air Force fighter-bombers, Army attack helicopters, and artillery batteries struck enemy hideouts and supply depots in the Taliban-controlled tribal agency on Saturday and Sunday, killing 30 Taliban fighters.
Taliban Blame ‘Blackwater’ for Pakistan Bombings
On Monday, Al Jazeera reported that a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban said the group accepted responsibility for only some of the recent suicide bombings in Pakistan, laying the blame for others, including a deadly attack on a market last month that killed more than 100 civilians, on the American security firm formerly known as Blackwater. The spokesman claimed that the firm, now called Xe, was involved in an attempt to discredit the militants by staging deadly attacks.
Air Force plans to reduce ranks by 3,700
The Air Force announced plans on Monday to cut 3,700 airmen, saying the mix of a poor economy and good retention has swelled its ranks beyond manageability.
Swine-Flu Panic in Ukraine: Crisis or Political Ploy?
Given the persistent rumors and the country’s volatile political situation, however, some Ukrainians have suggested that the gravity of the situation is being exaggerated by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko for political gain ahead of the January presidential elections.
TSA planning to inspect shops that repair jets
Thousands of airplane maintenance shops in the U.S. and abroad would get increased scrutiny to make sure they are not easy prey for terrorists looking to sabotage U.S. jets during routine repairs, a government proposal says.
2009 Virtual Criminology Report (PDF)
Experts disagree about the use of the term “cyber war,” and our goal at McAfee is not to create hype or stoke unwarranted fear. But our research has shown that while there may be debate over the definition of cyber war, there is little disagreement that there are increasing numbers of cyber attacks that more closely resemble political conflict than crime. We have also seen evidence that nations around the world are ramping up their capabilities in cyber space, in what some have referred to as a cyber arms race.
Encryption Is Cloud Computing Security Savior
I’m beginning to think that fears about cloud security are overblown. The reason: an intellectual framework is already in place for protecting data, applications, and connections. It’s called encryption. What’s evolving now, and isn’t anywhere near fully baked, is a set of agreed-upon implementations and best practices.
Luring top young talent to public service
For those thinking of joining the workforce, the CIA is seen as “the federal employer of choice.” The Pentagon and the CIA also are perceived as the most prestigious agencies. That’s a pretty good comeback for the CIA, whose effectiveness was questioned after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
China, US vow deeper co-op on counter-terrorism
The two sides promised they would boost joint efforts to combat transnational crime and criminal organizations as well as money laundering and the financing of terrorism, including counterfeiting and recovery of illicit funds.
Report calls for NSA-named head for central authority over bio labs
The GAO’s report, “High Containment Laboratories: National Strategy for Oversight Is Needed,” notes that unchecked growth of U.S. labs that work with biological agents without a central authority complicate efforts to make the sites secure and safe.
A Life Transformed by China: A Conversation With Saul Gitlin (Part 1)
In an age of “experts” we often find that few individuals have the proven experience to live up to the title once you scratch the surface- especially when it comes to China. Saul Gitlin- Executive Vice-President of top rated Asia-focused multicultural advertising agency Kang & Lee, founder of a popular LinkedIn group for Chinese-speaking professionals, mentor to budding Sinophiles, gifted storyteller and a scholar in his own right- is approaching thirty years of connection to China.
Neomarxism and Thomas Barnett
The point of all this is not that Barnett is a Neomarxist. . However, his grand strategy is consistent with the long-term rise and demise of the world-capitalist system. Neomarxists don’t believe that capitalism will end in a grand moment of revolution, but through a process of incremental steps in which capitalism is tamed by global political organization. Thus, the long-term outcome for Neomarxists is the emergence of a democratic world-state, one that can regulate global capitalism according to the collective action of all of humanity.
Worth Watching: ThomasPMBarnett
